Conficker Post-Mortem...It Is Dead, Isn't It?

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April 1 has come and, at least in some parts of the world, gone, and things are pretty much as they were before. The Conficker scare was unwarranted, as many had said it would be in advance. So where do we go from here?

Conficker remains out there and it's still a pretty big botnet, so you need to consider it as part of your security strategy. The advice we gave you in the Conficker To-Do List remains useful information (well, I'm a little cool to shutting off AutoRun, but most security people say to do it).

But all those tips are also general security advice tips; there's little that Conficker does that isn't done by other malware.

Just because Conficker didn't do anything on April 1 is no reason why it couldn't come to life some other day. Take the advice we gave you and you should be OK if that happens. The fact that it could happen anytime is the best reason not to worry about it.

And there's the big picture for you. Take this as an opportunity to harden your system and habits generally against malware. There's a lot of malware that's far more prevalent and far more virulent than Conficker, and you'd do well to worry about it instead of Conficker. Detection rates for a lot of malware, especially the rogue anti-malware programs, are not great, so the onus is on you, the user (and the admin) to recognize threats when they hit you.

I'd like to think that scares like this make things better by getting people into good habits. Those habits can save you a lot of trouble and time, especially when combined with the savvy to know a scam when you see it. That's the really hard part.